OT: Anyone growing Thornless Prickly Pear (Opuntia)

[Kelby]

Is anyone growing Opuntia/Prickly Pear? There is a thornless type out there, bred by Burbank. Not a ton of info on it, but I have seen it mentioned as hardy to below 20F. It gets significantly colder than that here. Curious if anyone has experience with it in colder areas. Maybe it could be container grown.

I can't grow thorned Opuntia (which can survive here) due to my kiddo. If she has my clumsy gene she'll get a handful of thorns!

[Clyde]

I have a thornless in your zone. It suffers more than my thorny ones from wet winter spells but it thrives anyway. It does not fruit like early season thorny one but still better than a long season one from southern New Mexico. I have no idea if it has any relation to the Burbank type.

[Kelby]

Have you tried the fruit?

[Tonycm]

I have a thornless prickly pear that I've had for at least 25 to 30 years. I'm not sure it's the same one you're talking about though. There's no thorns but it does have the tiny glochids which are still a pain if you get them in your skin. It's been through -25F with no problems.

[Kelby]

Have you eaten it at all?

[Tonycm]

No I haven't eaten it and don't think I would try to. From the link you posted on the territorial seed website, my cactus doesn't appear to be the same as that one. The pear in the website picture looks to be fuller and more spherical than my plants fruit which is more tapered towards the leaf.

[WillsC]

Is the fruit on the thornless and thorny the same? I love the fruit of the thorny type, unless I forget a thorn, normally miss one or two of the tiny evil ones in the end of the fruit in which case I don't like the fruit nearly as much.

[Kelby]

Here's what I was looking at Wills: http://www.territorialseed.com/produ...r/prickly_pear

[lauralou]

I second what Tonycm said. Just because it's thornless, doesn't mean it's touchable. As a matter of fact, I was just messing around with some babies I'm rooting, and I was oh-so-careful, yet I got a little cactus hair stuck in my thumb. (a glochid?) They're so small you can't really see them, but you can feel them. Not child-friendly.

Mine came from Oikos Tree Crops. And I haven't eaten any yet. It's still young. I have babies to root because the old man keeps knocking the tender young pads off by throwing the garden hose around.

[Kelby]

One of our generous forum members sent me a few pads of their thornless prickly pear. I kept two, and both have routed nicely. I gave one to a co-worker and I think his rooted as well. I guess I'll have to wait till spring so they actually do any growing! Completely smooth, pretty neat!

[GregMartin]

Let us know how it is when you get to the eating it stage. Thanks Kelby. Was funny to see this here as I've been thinking about these since reading about them recently in Sam Thayer's book.

[Kelby]

I have no clue how fast they will grow, but I'll send you some pads when they have some to spare (if you want).

[GregMartin]

Thanks Kelby. Fingers crossed that they do well for you.

[Pino]

I have a few varieties of opuntia;
ficus indica (a spineless from Italy), humifusa and fragilis (spineless and indigenous to Canada grow in ground) and a few of my own seedlings.
Also have a Phaecanta with huge thorns.
They all produce yellow flowers and purple prickly pears of various sizes.
Very easy to propagate. Actuallt the ones with spines are less dangerous because people don't get near them where the ones without spines have invisible glochids that feel like tiny bites.

[Atlatl]

The ones with large thorns are a great burglar repellent for that very reason. I wonder if a "fence" of thorny prickly pear could serve double duty of providing fruit and keeping the deer off the figs ....

[Pino]

Could be if you are in the right climate zone!
Have photos of prickly pears in Italy that are the size of small 14' tree/shrub and saw many walls of prickly pears.
However I only know of the Canada cactus (Opuntia humifusa and fragilis) to be cold hardy to zone 5.

[Kelby]

O. humifusa is still plenty to deter someone!

[Clyde]

I was looking through Seed Savers Fruit,Berry and Nut inventory and they say Burbank's spineless is only hardy to 20 degrees and has large fruits. That is not yours because it should do -10 easily if not too wet but fruits are medium at best.

[Kelby]

Well, I did some reading that Burbank made around 30 thornless hybrids. Perhaps this is still one?